I was already sad, so when I received a bipolar diagnosis it wasn’t the sadness that I thought about. It was happiness. It was good moods, and energy, it was wondering whether a good day was actually a good day, or hypomania. When I felt good did I actually feel the ‘right’ kind of good?
Feeling rubbish was normal, it had been 5 years of pretty consistent awful feelings and now here I was finding out that actually some of those times I felt good weren’t actually what I thought. It was confronting, and I was angry.
I was utterly furious that after spending so much time analysing, assessing and considering my low days I now had to extend that to my good days. Why can’t I just have something that doesn’t require analysis?
More than anything, I’ve been angry that I don’t have more of the good, more highs, more days where I feel on top of the world. What a complete rip off. Instead I get the constant sleepiness, the exhaustion caused by being around people, a decent amount of irritability and some erratic emotions.
Since receiving the diagnosis I have voraciously consumed articles, interviews and podcasts about people who have bipolar disorder type II. I have listened to people talking about getting a word stuck in their head that repeats over and over for hours, or a snippet of a tune that plays relentlessly and realised that something that I thought was normal actually doesn’t happen to everyone else. I have heard people say that it’s unlikely for someone with bipolar to be able to maintain a job, or a relationship, or buy a house, or live a normal life.
I have been pissed off that for five years I have been on the wrong medication and that if I hadn’t have asked for a referral then that’d still be the case. (The reality is that a diagnosis often takes up to ten years for someone with bipolar because it’s harder for practitioners to see all sides of it.)
A couple of months in I’m starting to get to a maintenance level with my new medication. I’m getting closer to being able to wean off my long term antidepressant, which is an awful thought because it is particularly nasty to come off.
I am getting closer to the point where I will be at a level where I should feel ‘normal’ and with that there’s a bit of anxiety. I have no idea what my own normal is now, I’m not sure what a real good day feels like. The lows haven’t been as bad as they had been, the bad days not quite as dire. It’s all an adjustment, as I slowly increase my medication I also adjust my understanding of bipolar. I’m adjust my understanding of what normal is and will be from now.
The diagnosis has been a relief to me, because it gave me hope that there was something that could be done, now I just have to work out how to do it.
